The scenario is certainly plausible. A small group of terrorists land a boat in one of hundreds of unsupervised ports on Canada's east or west coast, and unload bomb-making equipment without anyone noticing.

With the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US only days away, a senate committee has drawn attention to potential weakness in Canada's defences. "Nobody's there and no one would react if a vessel arrived and brought things ashore that we didn't want ashore in Canada," said senator Colin Kenny, who chairs the senate's committee on defence and national security.

He says it would be relatively easy to sneak weapons of mass destruction into Canada. "We don't want to be seen as the soft underbelly of North America."

There are hundreds of ports, and thousands of uninhabited coves along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada. Every day, 1,800 big ships arrive, but very few are inspected or supervised in any way. The senate committee insists the government can do much better without spending vast sums of money.

It says Ottawa could improve surveillance by getting all of the agencies that now patrol the coasts - the coast guard, the Royal Canadian mounted police and the military to work together, using satellites, patrol planes and vessels. It said that ships aren't required to notify authorities 48 hours in advance and that many smaller craft do not let anyone know they are coming.

The senate committee is not alone in its concerns over Canada's efforts to beef up security since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Last week Paul Cellucci, the US ambassador to Canada, for the first time, openly criticised Canada's lack of military spending and said the highest levels of the Bush administration were concerned.

Canada spends only 1% of its gross domestic product on defence. Critics have been complaining for years that Canada's air force lacks the capability to conduct combat operations and the navy is so short of sailors it can npt put all its destroyers to sea at the same time. They say the army is so stretched it can not send even a small force anywhere for more than six months. For that matter, it has trouble sending its troops overseas without chartering equipment or getting help from allies.

Mr Cellucci says this has not gone unnoticed by the US secretary of state Colin Powell, who told him to pressure Canada to spend more on its armed forces. The Canadian government has taken significant steps to ease the Bush administration's fears that Canada is a haven for terrorists - tightening border security and allowing US agents to work at Canadian border crossings.

It concedes that the US has every right to criticise Canada in the matter, but remains unlikely to give into pressure to increase spending on the beleaguered military. The prime minister Jean Chretien has said he will step down in 2004, and is focused on leaving a social policy legacy.

New spending in the next two budgets will likely be on healthcare, the environment and helping Canada's native population. The military will have to wait. But the government says it has already improved its surveillance of the long and lonely Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, and incoming vessels now have to tell authorities they are on their way. Let us hope terrorists comply.